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PATASKALA - Licking Heights Local Board of Education recently agreed to a new three-year contract with its teachers, giving them raises in each year of the contract.

The board approved the contract on May 17.

Per the new contract, which the union also approved, the teachers will receive 1.5 percent raises in 2016-17 and 2017-18 and 1.75 percent raises in 2018-19.

The district's previous three-year contract called for 1-percent annual raises.

Licking Heights Treasurer Nick Roberts said the raises in the new contract will cost the district a total of $700,000 over the three-year period. Roberts added the district can afford them, as his most-recent five-year forecast does not include any negative fund balances through 2020.

Part of the reason the district can afford the raises, Roberts said, is because the teachers also agreed to a change in their health care plan.

The district previously offered a two-tiered plan, but the teachers agreed to eliminate the plan's base-plus option. The option, Roberts said, featured lower deductibles.

Roberts estimated the move should save the district $525,000 this year.

Superintendent Philip Wagner applauded the teachers for working with the district on hammering out the new contract.

"It was a professional process," he said.

Wagner added the district wanted to agree on a contract that was both fair to the teachers and fair to the district's taxpayers. The new contract, he said, strikes that balance.

"We're trying to do what we can for the teachers, but also keep the cost as reasonable as we can for the community," he said.